# data[].attributes.body
Although not all of these have an obvious impact on the plot or writing expression within the novel, I believe that the social and economic troubles involving the US play into the story line, the character development, and the author's writing style.

# data[].attributes.body
California: The Nation's Most Unequal State

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Only some California residents are finding it to be the Golden State.

Those who live in the tech Mecca of Silicon Valley enjoy the highest level of well-being in the nation. Residents live more than four years longer than the average American, earn nearly double the income and have nearly triple the number of graduate degrees, according to a recent reportmeasuring opportunityin the nation's 435congressional districts and Washington D.C.

Less than 100 miles away in the state's Central Valley, however, residents have the lowest level of well-being.In thisagricultural hub, people live nearly a year less than the national average and an individual's earningsare roughly equal to the poverty line for a single parent with two children.Nearly four in ten fail to graduate from high school, far below the nation's norm.

As a result, California is the most unequal state in the nation when it comes to well-being, according to the report by Measure of America, which is a project of the Social Science Research Council.

Related: The American Dream is a myth, Nobel Prize winner says

The report provides a wider lens into inequality in America, said Kristen Lewis, co-director of Measure of America. Researchers examined life expectancy and median personal earnings to gauge health and standard of living, respectively. For access to education, they looked at school enrollment for those age 3 to 24 and at degree attainment for those 25 and up.

The three metrics indicate the chances Americans will be able to fulfill their potential and achieve whatever they define as happiness.

"It measures people's access to choices and opportunity," Lewis said.

What researchers found is that it really matters where you live. In Silicon Valley, life expectancy is 83.7 years and a typical resident earns $55,215 a year. Some 85.6% of younger residents are enrolled in school and 60% of those age 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree. The area is also home to Stanford University and tech giants such as Google , Netflix and Hewlett-Packard , which offer lots of high paying jobs.

Related: It's expensive to be poor

Drive southeast and you hit the southern half of California's Central Valley, which has a large dairy industry and produces many types of crops, including oranges, raisins, almonds and cotton. Life expectancy is only 78.4 in this regionand median income stands at just over $20,100. Only 73.5% of younger residents are in school and a scant 8.3% of older ones have at least a bachelor's degree.

Here are some of the other extremes found in California and aroundthe U.S.:

Life Expectancy: San Jose, California, residents enjoy the longest lives, on average, at just under 84 years. That's longer than the average life span in Japan, the country with the oldest average life expectancy.

Those living in rural southeastern Kentucky, on the other hand, have a life expectancy similar to residents ofGaza and the West Bank, at 73 years.

Education: Residents of Los Angeles' beach communities, which include Santa Monica and Malibu, boast the highest high school graduation rate of 95.5%. Nationally, only 86.6% of folks have a high school diploma.

But in a nearby district that includes the largely Hispanic areas of East Los Angeles and some suburbs, nearly half of residents didn't finish high school. That's similar to what the nation's graduation rate was in the late 1960s.

Income:The tony Upper East Side of Manhattan claims the top spot for median personal earnings at nearly $61,000a year, or twice what the typical American brings home.

At the other end of the spectrum is a multicultural district in and around downtown Los Angeles, where residents take home just $20,000 annually. That's comparable to the nation's typical personal income nearly 50 years ago.

Share your story. Are you living the American Dream?

Maps: America's Great Opportunity Divide

CNNMoney (New York) First published May 5, 2015: 6:40 PM ET

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
California: The nation's most unequal state

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Those who live in the tech Mecca of Silicon Valley enjoy the highest level of well-being in the nation. Residents live more than four years longer than the average American, earn nearly double the income and have nearly triple the number of graduate degrees, according to a recent reportmeasuring opportunityin the nation's 435congressional districts and Washington D.C.

# data[].attributes.body
Baton Rouge police officers won’t be charged in fatal shooting of Alton Sterling

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Officials in Louisiana on Tuesday declined to charge two Baton Rouge police officers in the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, one of a series of shootings that prompted nationwide protests in 2016.

Sterling, 37, was shot and killed after officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II responded to a call about a man threatening someone with a gun outside a convenience store. Although Sterling did have a gun - a loaded .38-caliber handgun found in his right pocket - it is unclear whether he was reaching for it when officers tackled and then shot him, as shown in a video that stoked national outrage.

State Attorney General Jeff Landry's decision not to charge the officers followed the Justice Department's announcement in May that there would be no federal civil rights charges against the officers because of insufficient evidence.

"This decision was not taken lightly," Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said during a news briefing Tuesday morning. He added: "I know the Sterling family is hurting. I know that they may not agree with this decision."
[Sacramento simmers with tension in wake of fatal police shooting of Stephon Clark]
The decision drew condemnation from civil rights activists who note that, more than three years after the unrest in Ferguson, Mo. brought national attention to police killings, the number of officers prosecuted for fatal shootings remains vanishingly small.

While just under 1,000 people are shot and killed by police annually, just a handful of those cases each year lead to criminal charges, according to The Washington Post's fatal police shooting database.

"I think this is one of many cases where it's just not fair," said Camryn Pourciau, 18, who protested on Tuesday afternoon in front of the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was killed.

Pourciau, who is white, said Sterling's death at the hands of police nearly two years ago pushed her into activism, particularly involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement.

"The officers should have been seen as guilty, lost their jobs and gotten what they deserved," Pourciau said.

Officers are rarely charged for on-duty shootings, and convictions in such cases are even rarer. Last week, a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman in 2017 was charged with murder and manslaughter. Those charges came about nine months after a jury in Minnesota acquitted the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during the traffic stop a day after Sterling was killed.

Since 2005, just 85 state and local police officers have been charged with a crime in connection with a fatal on-duty shooting, according to a tally kept by Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson. Of those officers, just 32 have been convicted - about half of whom accepted guilty pleas and some of whom were convicted of charges less than murder or manslaughter.

"As with many cases before Alton, the system has prioritized absolving the perpetrators instead of vigorously seeking fairness for the deceased, their family, and the larger communities in which they live," declared Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who leads the Congressional Black Caucus and represents Baton Rouge, in a statement. "Alton's name will be added to a growing list of young black men and women killed at the hands of law enforcement who were never charged and never had to face a jury of their peers."

Following the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Mo., which drew national attention to police killings and the criminal justice system, there has been a slight uptick in charges against officers in fatal shootings - but, once charges were filed, even the cases that most outraged the public have failed to yield convictions.

"Today, another Black family was failed by our justice system," said Rashad Robinson, executive director of the civil rights group Color Of Change, in a written statement. "Our communities are subjected to a constant feed of Black bodies being murdered, but no one is held accountable."
['Our city is hurting': Protesters swarm downtown Sacramento following deadly police shooting]
Sterling's death in July 2016 came at a fraught moment of racial tension nationwide amid shootings by and of police officers. A day after Sterling's death prompted outrage and protests, an officer in Minnesota shot and killed Philando Castile, a school cafeteria worker, during a traffic stop, the aftermath of which was streamed live on Facebook. That same week, five police officers in Dallas were gunned down by a black man angry at police, and just days later, another gunman killed three officers in Baton Rouge.

Landry's office took over a state investigation into whether the officers would face criminal charges after Hillar C. Moore III, the prosecutor for East Baton Rouge, recused himself from the investigation because he had a prior relationship with Salamoni's parents, both of whom worked with the Baton Rouge police.

The local investigation into Sterling's death stretched nearly two years, in part because it could not begin until after federal investigators looked into whether to bring civil rights charges. Once the Department of Justice announced that it would not charge Salamoni and Lake federally, officials with the state attorney general's office began their probe.

The Justice Department's decision not to pursue charges in the Sterling case marked the first time under Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the department declined to prosecute a police officer investigated for wrongdoing in a high-profile case. That decision caused frustration in Baton Rouge not only for the lack of charges, but also because the news was reported by The Washington Post before federal officials had informed Sterling's family.

But while declining to pursue charges in Sterling's death, federal authorities provided Sterling's family with new details about his death. After meeting with investigators, Chris Stewart, the lead attorney for the Sterling family, told reporters that evidence shows that at the beginning of the interaction with Sterling, Officer Salamoni put his gun to Sterling's head, and said, "I'll kill you, b--."

Bystander video, which was released to the public, as well as body camera video that has yet to be released, show the 90-second interaction, during which both officers tell Sterling to put his hands on the hood of a car. When he did not, a struggle ensued with Salamoni pulling out his gun and pointing it at Sterling's head. Later, Lake attempts to shoot Sterling with a stun gun.

Salamoni tackled Sterling and, with Sterling on his back and both officers on top of him, one of the officers appears to yell "He's got a gun!" Then six shots rang out and Sterling was dead.
[Thousands dead, few prosecuted: What happens when officers fatally shoot people]
During a 20-minute announcement detailing this decision, Landry said the investigation concluded that both officers "attempted to make a lawful arrest of Alton Sterling based upon probable cause." He said the officers acted on the assumption that Sterling was armed while resisting the officers' attempts to arrest him. After Sterling was shot, Lake found and removed a loaded .38 caliber handgun from Sterling's right front pocket, according to Landry's office.

Landry also said toxicology reports showed that Sterling had drugs in his system at the time of his death, which Landry linked to Sterling's behavior during his encounter with police.

"It is reasonable that Mr. Sterling was under the influence and that contributed to his noncompliance," said Landry, who did not take questions after announcing his decision.

Landry's office also released a 34-page report which said Sterling's body tested positive for opioids, cocaine and other drugs, results that "clearly indicated that he was under the influence of a combination of illegal substances," the report stated.

The same report also said Sterling's autopsy showed he had been shot six times - three times in the chest and three more times in his back - and all six bullets were recovered from his body. His cause of death was deemed a homicide caused by gunshot wounds to his heart, lung, esophagus and liver.

An attorney for Lake could not be reached for comment. John McLindon, the Baton Rouge attorney representing Salamoni, said he was not surprised by the decision not to charge his client.

"Every use of force expert that has looked at this ... has concluded that it was a justified shooting," McLindon said. "I'm not surprised at all by this announcement."

McLindon said that he expects the police department will now fire both officers by arguing that even if the shooting did not amount to something criminal, it was a violation of departmental policies. He also said the officers are already planning to appeal that firing.

McLindon added that he found the attorney general's comments about the toxicology report illuminating, and said that it perhaps helps explain why Sterling did not comply.

Murphy J. Paul Jr., the Baton Rouge police chief, said his department will continue its administrative review of how both officers acted in order to determine whether any policies or procedures were violated. He said the department hopes to conclude that process by Friday.

"We're asking our community for just a little more patience," Paul, who was sworn in as police chief in January, said at a news conference after Landry spoke.
[Video footage shows Minn. traffic stop that ended with Philando Castile's death]
Sterling's relatives and their attorneys assailed the decision, noting that they would continue pressing the case through a civil lawsuit filed last year.

"The system failed us," Sandra Sterling, his aunt, said during a news conference. "He was not a monster. ... This was a family man. A family man."

On Tuesday, outside the store where Sterling was killed, a disappointed Felma White went to the parking lot wearing a shirt covered with newspaper headlines about the shooting and the subsequent protests. She had it made specifically for Sterling's funeral.

"I want justice for the family," said White, 63. She described herself as a friend of the family who knew Sterling from purchasing his CDs at the store. "They have gone through so much. I wanted to see a guilty verdict for the officers."

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D), who represents part of Baton Rouge, called the decision Tuesday "the latest sign that we have a lot of work to do in regard to criminal justice and policing reform."

"Trust between the Baton Rouge community and law enforcement has deeply eroded," Richmond, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement. "We must all continue to work to bridge the divide between law enforcement and community. Until this is done, many young black men and women will be forced to fear any non-threatening action they take could be met with certain death."

While fatal shootings by police have continued at about the same pace as previous years, according to The Washington Post's database tracking these incidents, these incidents have drawn less national attention recently and largely faded from the national political debate.

Some fatal shootings still prompt widespread media attention, including the death earlier this month of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man shot and killed by Sacramento police officers while in his grandmother's backyard. The death of Clark, who was holding an iPhone at the time that police said they mistook for a gun, has given way to extended protests in that city.

California's attorney general said Tuesday that, at the Sacramento police chief's request, his office would "provide independent oversight" of the probe into Clark's death.

In Baton Rouge Tuesday evening, the streets remained empty outside police headquarters, the scene of some of the most brutal clashes between demonstrators and police in the wake of Sterling's 2016 shooting death. Barricades lined police property and massive temporary light fixtures aimed out at the streets, all seemingly in preparation for demonstrations that had not yet come.

At the Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was fatally shot, a small group gathered under a tent in the parking lot, boiling crawfish and talking.

Travis Hicks, 33, spread burned CDs out across two card tables to sell to store customers. Hicks knew Sterling, who also sold CDs at the store.

"I already knew what it was going to come down to," Hicks said of Tuesday's announcement. "If it was one of us, they would never hesitate to throw a charge on us. What difference is it if it's the police?"

A.C. Dantzler, 36, agreed.

"I'm not surprised," he said. "This is Baton Rouge."
Further reading: The Washington Post's database of fatal police shootings Officer charged with murder in shooting death of unarmed woman in Minneapolis alley What the police officer who shot Philando Castile said about the shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Baton Rouge police officers won't be charged in fatal shooting of Alton Sterling

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Officials in Louisiana on Tuesday declined to charge two Baton Rouge police officers in the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, one of a series of shootings that prompted nationwide protests in 2016. Sterling, 37, was shot and killed after officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II responded to a call about a man threatening someone with a gun outside a convenience store.

# data[].attributes.body
California Economy & Government Crumble While Elites Watch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites.

here was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed rail - before the first mile of track has been laid. One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the area soon.

Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason.

The basket of California state taxes - sales, income, and gasoline - rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.

After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still being diverted to sea. Thousands of rural central-California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned because of a sinking aquifer and dry wells.

One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. Yet the state's gas and electricity prices are among the nation's highest.

One in four state residents was not born in the U.S. Current state-funded pension programs are not sustainable.

One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line.

California depends on a tiny elite class for about half of its income-tax revenue. Yet many of these wealthy taxpayers are fleeing the 40-million-person state, angry over paying 12 percent of their income for lousy public services.

Public-health costs have soared as one-third of California residents admitted to state hospitals for any causes suffer from diabetes, a sometimes-lethal disease often predicated on poor diet, lack of exercise, and excessive weight.

Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the Los Angeles area are classified as hit-and-run collisions.

Grass-roots voter pushbacks are seen as pointless. Progressive state and federal courts have overturned a multitude of reform measures of the last 20 years that had passed with ample majorities.

In impoverished central-California towns such as Mendota, where thousands of acres were idled due to water cutoffs, once-busy farmworkers live in shacks. But even in opulent San Francisco, the sidewalks full of homeless people do not look much different.

#share#What caused the California paradise to squander its rich natural inheritance?

Excessive state regulations and expanding government, massive illegal immigration from impoverished nations, and the rise of unimaginable wealth in the tech industry and coastal retirement communities created two antithetical Californias.
RELATED: Can California Be Saved?
One is an elite, out-of-touch caste along the fashionable Pacific Ocean corridor that runs the state and has the money to escape the real-life consequences of its own unworkable agendas.

The other is a huge underclass in central, rural, and foothill California that cannot flee to the coast and suffers the bulk of the fallout from Byzantine state regulations, poor schools, and the failure to assimilate recent immigrants from some of the poorest areas in the world.

The result is Connecticut and Alabama combined in one state. A house in Menlo Park may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot. In Madera, three hours away, the cost is about one-tenth of that.

In response, state government practices escapism, haggling over transgender-restroom and locker-room issues and the aquatic environment of a three-inch baitfish rather than dealing with a sinking state.
RELATED: California, Leading from Behind
What could save California?

Blue-ribbon committees for years have offered bipartisan plans to simplify and reduce the state tax code, prune burdensome regulations, reform schools, encourage assimilation and unity of culture, and offer incentives to build reasonably priced housing.

Instead, hypocrisy abounds in the two Californias.

Elites need to go back and restudy the state's can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government.

If Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg wants to continue lecturing Californians about their xenophobia, he at least should stop turning his estates into sanctuaries with walls and security patrols. And if faculty economists at the University of California at Berkeley keep hectoring the state about fixing income inequality, they might first acknowledge that the state pays them more than $300,000 per year - putting them among the top 2 percent of the university's salaried employees.

Immigrants to a diverse state where there is no ethnic majority should welcome assimilation into a culture and a political matrix that is usually the direct opposite of what they fled from.

More unity and integration would help. So why not encourage liberal Google to move some of its operations inland to needy Fresno, or lobby the wealthy Silicon Valley to encourage affordable housing in the near-wide-open spaces along the nearby I-280 corridor north to San Francisco?

Finally, state bureaucrats should remember that even cool Californians cannot drink Facebook, eat Google, drive on Oracle, or live in Apple. The distant people who make and grow things still matter.

Elites need to go back and restudy the state's can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government - at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity, and homes; safe roads; and competitive schools.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Victor Davis Hanson - NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, ofThe Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. @vdhanson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Will California Ever Thrive Again? | National Review

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites. here was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed rail - before the first mile of track has been laid.

# data[].attributes.body
50 Dead, Islamic Terrorism Tie Eyed in Orlando Gay Bar Shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ORLANDO, Fla. - A shooting and hostage situation early Sunday at a Florida nightclub -- which describes itself as "Orlando's hottest gay bar" -- left an estimated 50 people dead, including the gunman, and more than 50 injured, officials say.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said at a press conference Sunday that a state of emergency has been declared after what authorities have indicated may have been a "lone wolf" style terror attack. The attack appears to be the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

Sources have confirmed to CBS News that authorities are investigating whether the suspect, who has been named as Omar Mateen, had ties to Islamic terrorism. Mateen, of Port. St. Lucie, Florida, is a U.S. citizen with no apparent criminal history, according to sources.

Dyer said that in addition to the 50 people who were killed in the attack, 53 were treated for injuries.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina said the suspect was found with a handgun and an AR-15-style assault rifle.

Medical officials say there is an urgent need for donations of O Negative blood, O Positive blood and AB Plasma. To find a donation center visit www.oneblood.org or call 1.888.9Donate. Donors should be healthy, age 16 or older and weigh at least 100 pounds.

A U.S. intelligence source told CBS news senior investigative producer Pat Milton that Islamic terrorism is being investigated as a possible motive in the shooting due to several indicators including the style of the attack, which had similarities to the attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March. The gunman put up a protracted gun battle with police and was heavily armed, the source said.

Robots are now analyzing a device the gunman had strapped to his body to determine if it was a real explosive device or a fake made to look like a real device, the source said.

Sources tell Milton that authorities investigating the incident are still looking into whether the attack is a hate crime.

Mina said the incident at Pulse nightclub began around 2:20 a.m., when shots rang out and an officer already posted at the event engaged the gunman, whom Mina said was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun, and a "device" of some kind that officials believed was a threat. Mina said the gunman appeared organized and well-prepared for the incident.

Pulse Orlando posted on its own Facebook page around 2 a.m.: "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." Just before 6 a.m., the club posted an update: "As soon as we have any information we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love."

After the officer already there engaged the gunman, other law enforcement agencies and officials responded, and the gunman retreated into the nightclub and began a "hostage situation," Mina said.

SWAT officer eventually made the decision to attempt to rescue the hostages, and entered the club, where nine officers were involved in the fatal shooting of the gunman, Mina said. One officer was injured, and Mina said he believes the officer's life was probably saved by his Kevlar helmet.

How and when the numerous deaths occurred is still being investigated, officials said.

Stuart Milk, the president of the Harvey Milk Foundation, an LGBT advocacy group, decried the "act of horrendous violence" in a statement posted to Facebook.

Mina and other law enforcement officials insisted there is no ongoing threat to the community.

As the news of the mass shooting broke Sunday morning, presidential candidates and other politicians took to Twitter to express their support for the victims.

Law enforcement sources tell CBS News the FBI is now responding, but that the Orlando Police Department is leading the investigation into the active shooting.

The incident is the second deadly shooting at an Orlando nightclub in the last week. Last Friday, 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie was shot and killed after her concert in Orlando by a 27-year-old Florida man who later killed himself. Grimmie was a YouTube sensation and former contestant on "The Voice." Mina said officials do not believe the two incidents are linked.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
50 dead, Islamic terrorism tie eyed in Orlando gay bar shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ORLANDO, Fla. - A shooting and hostage situation early Sunday at a Florida nightclub -- which describes itself as "Orlando's hottest gay bar" -- left an estimated 50 people dead, including the gunman, and more than 50 injured, officials say.

# data[].attributes.body
Protests Against Police Violence Continue Across U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Protests and related events continued nationwide Monday after the police shootings of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, and the deadly sniper attack on police officers in Dallas.

Here is the latest on protests:
COLORADO
Police protests were calm and lightly attended in Denver on Monday, when a group of about 50 waved signs decrying police killings while a smaller group entered a fourth day of quietly mourning blacks killed by police in the last year.

The demonstrations outside the state Capitol attracted a mixed-race crowd and supporters bringing water, fruit and sandwiches to support the efforts. A handful of police stood watch from about a block away.

The Denver observations were a marked contrast from charged police protests in some cities. None of the protesters attempted to block the streets during a busy lunchtime hour. Instead the protesters kept to a park to wave signs and mourn.

Protesters say they were inspired to protest by cases around the country of police killing young black men.

___
GEORGIA
Protesters gathered outside the governor's mansion in Atlanta, CBS affiliate WGCL reported. But Gov. Nathan Deal is out of the country.

A woman was detained by Atlanta police in the fifth day of protests, WGCL reported.

As the woman was being detained, there was a brief scuffle in the area where protesters met police officers.

Soon after midnight, WGCL reported the crowd outside the mansion was dispersing, after Mayor Kasim Reed agreed to a two hour meeting with activists this coming Monday morning.

Reed said earlier Monday that about 15,000 people attended various protests this weekend in the city. Reed said 14 people were arrested Saturday and Sunday by the Atlanta Police Department, and two were arrested by the Georgia State Patrol.

About 75 people remained at Piedmont Park until about 2 a.m. Monday, WGCL reported. Some in the crowd talked about the need to get more organized.

"We're moving forward to protest," said Torean LaVeehargro. "We're moving forward to boycott."

Giles Willis came to the rally. He told WGCL he was inspired by his girlfriend who had been protesting for days.

"My girlfriend got pepper-sprayed in the face last night by the cops after they bumped her with their car and then charged her with obstruction or something like that," Willis said. "I had to bail her out of jail."

Willis held a full-length mirror during the rally.

"This is mainly to remind everybody what they look like, what they're representing, reflected right back at them," he said. "Especially for the police that can't even look at themselves in the eyes and see the fear that they have."

Atlanta police officers are working 12 hour shifts, WGCL reported.

"In some cases, they have had bottles of water thrown at them and obscenities and insults shouted at them repeatedly for hours on end yet they've remained calm and professional but they're also exhausted," said Reed said about the officers.

___
ILLINOIS
Protesters marched peacefully through Chicago Loop in another day of demonstrations over police methods sparked by the fatal shooting to two black men by white officers in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Monday's demonstration was organized over social media by teenage girls who said they were determined to keep it peaceful.

Demonstrators staged two different marches Monday afternoon.

One group - organized by the teen girls -- staged a sit-in at Millennium Park that turned into a march. They headed to the other side of the Loop, where additional hundreds gathered at Federal Plaza.

Organizers said many protesters put tape over their mouths to symbolize the way police brutality silences African Americans.

The combined group of marchers, estimated to be 1,000 strong, proceeded to march into the evening, at times stopping traffic by blocking intersections.

Chicago police officers, including cops on bicycles, monitored the protesters and followed their march.

The demonstrations in Chicago in recent days have been relatively peaceful, though police scuffled with some protesters Saturday, resulting in 16 arrests.

___
KENTUCKY
Dozens of people attended a vigil in Louisville to protest the recent police killings of black men.

The Courier-Journal reports the "Breaking White Silence" event began at noon Monday outside Metro Louisville Police Department headquarters. It was organized by Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice. A statement from the group says the gathering is part of a national effort to get more white people to voice concerns about racial justice.

Tensions between black citizens and police have risen since last week's killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota by white officers, and a retaliatory attack on police by a black sniper in Dallas that killed five officers and wounded others.

The group said it will read the names of people killed by police and the names of the officers killed in Dallas.

___
LOUISIANA
A Louisiana civil rights group is criticizing law enforcement officers over their treatment of protesters.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said Monday that Baton Rouge police "used violent, militarized tactics on groups of people who have gathered peacefully in protest of Alton Sterling's killing." At times, police have used riot gear and military-style vehicles in demonstrations.

Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was killed Tuesday by two white police officers. His death, captured on video by bystanders, has sparked days of protests.

Authorities have arrested about 200 demonstrators since Friday. Monday night's protests were largely peaceful.

___
TENNESSEE
Memphis officials are asking protesters who occupied a key bridge over the Mississippi River Sunday night to attend a meeting where they can voice their concerns.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Interim Police Chief Michael Rallings said Monday morning that the meeting would be held at 4 p.m. at Greater Imani Church in Memphis as a way to start a dialogue on how to unite the city.

Traffic on Interstate 40 was blocked in both directions for hours after hundreds of angry Black Lives Matter protesters marched onto the bridge to show their anger about police killings of black people. Police in squad cars tried to stop them, but several hundred had already made their way up the ramp, and the crowd swelled to more than 1,000.

Rallings locked arms in solidarity with people marching off the bridge. Several hundred remained until riot police with shields slowly pushed them off.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Protests against police violence continue across U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Protests and related events continued nationwide Monday after the police shootings of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, and the deadly sniper attack on police officers in Dallas.

# data[].attributes.body
San Bernardino: Couple Die in Gun Battle With Police After Mass Shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A couple have been killed in a police gun battle hours after they took part in a mass shooting that left at least 14 people dead and 17 wounded in San Bernardino, California.

Syed Farook and his partner Tashfeen Malik were shot dead by police officers following a car chase through the streets of the city. Police said Farook and Malik, aged 28 and 27, were intercepted and a gun battle with more than 20 officers left their dark SUV riddled with bullets and both suspects dead.

The chase came about four hours after Farook left a gathering of fellow public health employees of San Bernardino county where he worked. Police said he was angry and departed early, only to return with his partner. Both were heavily armed.

The attack at the Inland Regional Center, which lies 60 miles (95km) east of Los Angeles, was the deadliest shooting on US soil since the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012.

The San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan said one officer was shot in the gun battle and was transported to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Two rifles and two handguns were found in the SUV.

During the hunt for the couple a third person was taken into custody, but police said they were confident the couple were the only ones responsible for the killings.

The attack started at about 11am local time. Most of those killed or injured were in one area of the building, police said.

The building was evacuated in the aftermath; people were taken across the street to a golf course, where some were given initial treatment for their injuries.

map - San Bernardino

Hours after the attack police continued to search a house in the neighbouring city of Redlands believed to be connected to Farook. A number of controlled explosions were heard by people at the scene.

Officials of the Los Angeles Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) held a media conference on Wednesday night "unequivocally condemning" the mass shooting.

An emotional Farhan Khan, introduced at the Cair conference as the brother-in-law of Farook, told the assembled media: "I just cannot express how sad I am for what happened. Condolences to the people who lost their life ... I'm very sad, and to the victims out there I wish a speedy recovery to them. I have no idea why he would do something like this. I'm in shock myself."

Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Islamic Council of South California, expressed his "sadness and sorrow" for those killed and injured: "We are in solidarity with them."

Hussam Ayloush, the executive director of Cair in the Los Angeles area said Farook and and Malik left their baby daughter with Farook's mother in the nearby city of Redlands on Wednesday morning, telling her that they were going to attend a doctor's appointment for Malik.

Ayloush told CNN that the Farook family "have no reason [about] what made him snap. Was it workplace related? Is it mental illness? Is it some twisted ideology? It is really unknown to us. All they [the family] can do is share with everybody sorrow and prayers."

David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the LA field office of the FBI, said he could not rule out terrorism as the reason for the killings. "I know one of the questions that will come up is 'is this terrorism', and we don't know that for sure. It is a possibility but we don't know that yet and we're not willing to go down that road yet," he said.

Burguan, the police chief, said: "We do not have a motive." He told the media the shooters had entered the center "as if on a mission", adding: "They came in with a purpose ... We have no information to indicate that this is terrorism in the traditional sense; obviously at a minimum we have a domestic terrorism situation."

Alex Vasquez, an NBC4 cameraman who was driving nearby when a call from his newsdesk redirected him to the scene, said he arrived as shooting still resounded through the building. "They were the last shots fired," he said later.

"People were running," Vasquez continued. "People had been shot in the back, arms, chest. I saw a woman who was badly injured. She was on the ground, struggling. I saw her take her last breath." Vasquez shook his head. "These were people who got up in the morning and went to work and ended up in their worst nightmare."

Marybeth Field, a member of the board of trustees at Inland Regional Services, said that on any given day the facility had 500 employees on site. She said the San Bernardino county public health department had rented a conference center for a Christmas party on Wednesday. She had a meeting at the center scheduled for Wednesday morning but had not yet arrived when the shooting began.

A local man told ABC7 that he had received a text from his daughter saying: "Shooting at my workplace. People shot. In the office waiting for cops. Pray for us." She said she was locked in an office.

There were reports of Swat team officers in the social services building and aerial photographs of people leaving the building with their hands in the air. Soon afterwards all courts, government buildings and schools in the county were put on lockdown.

Nancy Lungren, assistant director of communications for the California department of developmental services, said the Inland Regional Center was one of 21 facilities in the state that helped to coordinate services and support people with developmental disabilities including autism and cerebral palsy.

"And it can make all the difference," Lungren said. "They try to keep them in a community, living at home or living in an apartment."

Police advised residents to avoid the area near Orange Show Road and Waterman Avenue. Early witness reports described three gunmen wearing ski masks and camouflage and carrying rifles, but police later said they were confident a man and a woman were the only ones responsible.

This was the 342nd mass shooting in the US this year, according to Shootingtracker.com, a site that records all incidents with four or more victims (including the shooter). Together, those shootings left at least 447 individuals confirmed as dead and 1,292 injured.

On Friday three people were killed and nine injured in an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Barack Obama condemned the latest mass shooting - and the lack of political action to prevent them taking place - in an interview with ABC News. "We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere in the world," the president said. Congress could do more to "improve the odds that they don't happen as frequently", he said.

Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator who had just been elected when the 26 people were shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, leading him into a campaign for gun control, summed up the feelings of many on social media:

Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT)
Oh god. Not again. #SanBernardino

Additional reporting by Paul Lewis in San Francisco Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
San Bernardino: couple die in gun battle with police after mass shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A couple have been killed in a police gun battle hours after they took part in a mass shooting that left at least 14 people dead and 17 wounded in San Bernardino, California. Syed Farook and his partner Tashfeen Malik were shot dead by police officers following a car chase through the streets of the city.

# data[].attributes.body
#BlackLivesMatter: The Birth of a New Civil Rights Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
licia Garza was in a bar in Oakland, California, drinking bourbon when the verdict came in. It was July 2013 and she had been following the trial of George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, who had shot dead a 17-year-old African-American by the name of Trayvon Martin in February of the preceding year. Martin had been unarmed, on his way back from a 7/11 convenience store where he had just bought himself an iced tea and a bag of Skittles.

There had, of course, been shootings of young black men before. But this one had a particular resonance. Garza had a younger brother of a similar height and build to Martin. She felt it could just as easily have been him.

In the bar, Garza, her husband and her two friends had been checking their phones for updates from the trial. The jury had been deliberating for 16 hours on Zimmerman's fate. When the verdict was announced, she learned of it first through Facebook: not guilty of second degree murder and acquitted of manslaughter.

"Everything went quiet, everything and everyone," Garza says now. "And then people started to leave en masse. The one thing I remember from that evening, other than crying myself to sleep that night, was the way in which as a black person, I felt incredibly vulnerable, incredibly exposed and incredibly enraged. Seeing these black people leaving the bar, and it was like we couldn't look at each other. We were carrying this burden around with us every day: of racism and white supremacy. It was a verdict that said: black people are not safe in America."

Garza logged on to Facebook. She wrote an impassioned online message, "essentially a love note to black people", and posted it on her page. It ended with: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."

Garza's close friend, Patrisse Cullors, read the post in a motel room 300 miles away from Oakland that same night. Cullors, also a community organiser working in prison reform, started sharing Garza's words with her friends online. She used a hashtag each time she reposted: #blacklivesmatter. The following day, Garza and Cullors spoke about how they could organise a campaign around these sentiments.

"A call to action," says Garza. "To make sure we are creating a world where black lives actually do matter."

They reached out to Opal Tometi, another activist they knew in the field of immigrant rights. The three women started by setting up Tumblr and Twitter accounts and encouraging users to share stories of why #blacklivesmatter. Garza made protest signs with block capital letters and put them in the window of a local shoe shop. Cullors led a march down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills with a banner emblazoned with the same hashtag. The slogan started gaining traction.

Then, on 9 August 2014, a little over a year after Zimmerman was allowed to walk free from court, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Officer Darren Wilson had fired 12 rounds. Brown had been unarmed.

Protests broke out the day after Brown's shooting. There was some unrest and looting. Cars were vandalised, commercial properties broken into. Police officers in riot gear took to the streets. Watching the drama unfold on TV, Garza had that same sickening feeling she'd had when she heard of Trayvon Martin's death. Along with Cullors and Tometi, she organised a "freedom ride" to Ferguson under the auspices of the #blacklivesmatter campaign. More than 500 people signed up from 18 different cities across America. When they reached Ferguson, Garza was astonished to see her own phrase mirrored back at her on protest banners and shouted in unison by people she had never met.

When a grand jury announced Darren Wilson would face no indictment in the matter of Brown's death, a group of protesters chanting "Black lives matter" shut down a local shopping mall. Later, after a spate of further deaths of unarmed black men, the phrase started appearing on T-shirts and mugs and badges. In December, Hillary Clinton used the phrase in a speech delivered at a human rights gala. It was referred to in television programmes - an episode of Law & Order; the finale of Empire. By January 2015, the American Dialect Society had declared #blacklivesmatter as their "word" of the year.

Alicia Garza in San Francisco, May 2015: 'We have a lot of leaders, just not where you might be looking for them. If you're only looking for the straight black man who is a preacher, you're not going to find it.' Photograph: Kristin Little

In June, following the shooting of nine people by a suspected white supremacist in a church in Charleston, the activist Bree Newsome climbed the flagpole outside the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina and removed the Confederate flag. Her actions were tweeted and retweeted under the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. At a subsequent eulogy for the victims of the church shooting, President Barack Obama paid tribute to black churches for being a place where children were "taught that they matter". There are now over 26 Black Lives Matter chapters across the United States. From one heartfelt Facebook post, it has spawned a new civil rights movement.

Garza has been astonished by the response. "This wasn't something that we - you know..." She pauses. "We didn't have a strategic plan."

Black America is in a state of protest. The 21st-century civil rights movement, exemplified by the action taken by Garza and those like her, is democratic in its aims and agile in its responses. It is fuelled by grief and fury, by righteous rage against injustice and institutionalised racism and by frustration at the endemic brutality of the state against those it deems unworthy.

In almost every area of society, black Americans remain disadvantaged. Education? Forty-two percent of black children are educated in high-poverty schools. Employment? The unemployment rate for black high-school dropouts is 47% (for white high-school dropouts it is 26%). Housing? Although black people make up just 13.2% of the US population, they account for 37% of the homeless. Voters' rights? One in every 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised because of a felony conviction - a rate more than four times greater than the rest of the US population. In fact, African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million jail population and are incarcerated nearly six times as often as white people.

Despite the election of America's first black president in 2008, those profound structural fissures remain. But although the challenges might be similar, the new civil rights movement is tackling them in new ways compared to the 20th-century movement. The most notable difference is that, in 2015, there are no leaders in the conventional sense: no Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, no single charismatic voice that claims to speak for the many. Several people I interview insist this is a strength: they make the bleak point that, historically, single leaders of civil rights movements have almost always been assassinated. They have also been male.

"We have a lot of leaders," insists Garza, "just not where you might be looking for them. If you're only looking for the straight black man who is a preacher, you're not going to find it."

Instead, the new civil rights movement combines localised power structures with an inclusive ethos that consciously incorporates women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer activists. DeRay Mckesson, one of the most high-profile activists with a Twitter following of 176,000, is a gay man. Garza identifies as queer (her husband is transgender).

The new movement is powerful yet diffuse, linked not by physical closeness or even necessarily by political consensus, but by the mobilising force of social media. A hashtag on Twitter can link the disparate fates of unarmed black men shot down by white police in a way that transcends geographical boundaries and time zones. A shared post on Facebook can organise a protest in a matter of minutes. Documentary photos and videos can be distributed on Tumblr pages and Periscope feeds, through Instagrams and Vines. Power lies in a single image. Previously unseen events become unignorable.

Events like the arrest of a 43-year-old man named Eric Garner, who was placed in a chokehold for 15 to 19 seconds by a white police officer on the sidewalk of Staten Island, New York, in July 2014. Garner can be heard on mobile phone video footage saying, "I can't breathe" a total of 11 times and was pronounced dead in hospital an hour later. The video went viral. "I can't breathe" became a totemic phrase for protesters. The basketball player LeBron James wore a T-shirt with the words emblazoned across the front and was praised by President Obama for the act.

Events like a pool party in McKinney, Texas in June where a white police officer threw a 14-year-old black girl to the ground, pinning her down for several minutes, before pulling a gun on two teenage boys. A bystander filmed the fracas, posted it on YouTube where it was viewed almost 500,000 times before being picked up by all the major news channels. The officer was suspended and later resigned.

Events like this were happening before - as many activists say, "there's a Mike Brown in every town" - but it is only now that technological advances and digital savvy have ensured the dots are joined.

"Social media's significance is that it is recognising different incidents that might have gone unnoticed and sewing them together as a coherent whole," says Ethan Zuckerman, the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and the author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection. "And that means we're forced to recognise very serious structural issues."

Social networking sites are used disproportionately by young, black Americans - 96% of African-American internet users aged 18-29 use a social network of some kind. Forty per cent of the same group say they use Twitter - 12% more than the comparable figure for young white people. According to Todd Wolfson, the author of Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left, the new civil rights movement has important precursors in grassroots uprisings such as the Arab spring and Occupy: "The Cyber Left is about flattening hierarchies, flattening governance processes, combined with using the logic of social networks for deep consensus building."

Activist DeRay Mckesson updates his website and posts updates to Twitter from a McDonald's in Ferguson. Photograph: Getty Images

Kwame Rose, a 21-year-old civil rights protester from Baltimore, agrees: "Social media plays a big part in everything. I find out information, I put it on Twitter, it starts trending the more people talk about it and then the institutions start feeling the pressure."

It is no coincidence that the majority of these new digital activists are in their 20s - internet natives, brought up in the online age, versed in the politics of revolution. Mckesson composes his speeches in tweets to ensure the soundbites can be shared in 140 characters. One community organiser I speak to says with a straight face that "a youth activist means up to the age of 35". When I ask another about her attitude towards violence, she replies coolly: "What is violence? Is violence denying people proper access to food, housing and healthcare? If you're referring to rioting, I guess it's a reaction to the system in which we live. The state is violent."

Although #blacklivesmatter was the original call to action, it is only one tributary in a larger, fast-flowing river. Other organisations have sprung from a shared sense of unease, such as the Coalition Against Police Violence, which is run by two female activists, or the Black Youth Project 100, which has chapters across the country and campaigns against the use of racially motivated force, or the Florida-based Dream Defenders, which has mobilised communities against racial profiling and state oppression, and which started before Black Lives Matter. These activists communicate and link up online, minting a solidarity through social media that gives their separate voices mass focus and power.

As a result, says Steven Pargett, the communications director for Dream Defenders: "There are fewer gatekeepers, in terms of being able to tell our own stories." He points out that during the protests in Ferguson, activists could take to Twitter to highlight the contradictions between police reports and eyewitness accounts. So while the TV networks were reporting on incidents of rioting and looting, real-time tweets from protesters on the ground claimed that the police had been firing tear gas and rubber bullets into groups of peaceful protesters.

In April, a similar thing happened in Baltimore. There were protests in the city following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who fell into a coma while in police care and later died of spinal injuries; the full autopsy has yet to be released. On the evening of 28 April, Kwame Rose was watching the coverage on television. He was "riled up" by what he saw: inflammatory language, talk of "riots" and no mention of the community initiative that had taken place earlier that day to try and clean up the streets.

"When the media started saying 'tensions were high', they were lying," he tells me over Skype, peering out from beneath a pristine black baseball cap.

At 9.30pm, he went out with a group of organisers to help get people off the streets in time for the curfew. They asked some police to drop their riot gear and hold hands in prayer. It was, says Rose, "very calm". Then he stumbled across a TV crew from Fox News. They were there to film the mustachioed talkshow host Geraldo Rivera who was attempting to interview a state senator among the crowds. Rose confronted Rivera about Fox News's "biased" account of what was happening.

"You're not here reporting about the boarded-up homes and the homeless people," he said, in an impassioned, impromptu speech caught on video. "You're not reporting about the poverty levels up and down North Avenue... you're here for the 'black riots'. You're not here for the death of Freddie Gray."

The clip was shared on Twitter. When Rose woke up on Wednesday morning, the video had been picked up by the World Star Hip Hop aggregating blog.

"That's a big thing," Rose says now, shaking his head. At the time, he had a job as the doorman of a big hotel chain. When he got to work that day, his general manager told him the film was all over the TV. He lost his job as a result of the attention.

When Kwame was growing up, his father, "Big Rose", had taught him about civil rights history. Now, Kwame realised, he was fighting the same fight. He quotes James Baldwin by way of explanation: "To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage."

"I see what's being done and I'm mad about it," he says. "It's an attack on black masculinity. You see it all the time [in the mainstream media]. When Dylan Roof [the suspect in the Charleston church shooting] was arrested, you see all these baby pictures of him. We are the same age. After the Rivera video, I was called every other name than the one my parents gave me. Dylan Roof was 'a lost child'. Mike Brown, at 18, was 'a troubled black man'."

Indeed, when Brown was gunned down, the photo initially used by some of the rightwing media was one taken from below, throwing his face into half-shadow, showing him glowering at the camera making a V sign. It was widely interpreted by conservative pundits as a gang-related gesture. There were other pictures available, including one of Brown as a chubby-cheeked teenager in headphones and a Varsity jacket. Thousands of people took to Twitter to post contrasting images of themselves, posing the question as to which would be chosen if they became the subject of a news report under the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown

"This was a way of saying 'Hey, mainstream media, you're doing something really bad! Here's this pattern, what are you going to do about it?'" says Ethan Zuckerman from MIT. "What's interesting is it didn't get talked about to me. But the newspapers moved away from this problematic image [of Michael Brown]."

It was a perfect example of new civil rights activism: online pressure brought to bear on a single potent issue with high visibility. Similar action ensured the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse in the wake of the Charleston church shooting. Because so many of the new generation of activists are young and smart and technologically engaged, there is a restless, inventive energy to their campaigns, which can be started with little more than an iPhone. With the dissemination of information online, there is greater accountability. The mainstream has fewer places to hide.

Since Brown was killed in the street in Ferguson, several other unarmed African Americans have been the victims of fatal violence at the hands of the police - Tamir Rice in Ohio, Tony Robinson in Wisconsin and Walter Scott in South Carolin a, to name only a few. Online activism has ensured we know the victims' names and that they are linked in our collective mind.

Until now, deaths like these were viewed as a chronic problem, endured by local communities yet largely hidden from broader public consciousness. But the rise of a new generation of digital activists such as Garza, Mckesson, Rose and others, has created a sense of emergency in America. Fatalities at the hands of police are now front-page news. They can no longer be ignored.

Samuel Sinyangwe's earliest experience of racism was at elementary school. He grew up in Orlando, Florida in a predominantly white community and he remembers being beaten up by an older kid and being called the N-word in the playground. He had soccer practice just down the road from where Trayvon Martin was shot.

"I used to go to that same 7/11 [as Martin] every day for a packet of Starburst," he says, talking from his home in San Francisco. "It could have been me. It really could have been anyone who looked like me."

Protesters hold signs during a march and rally for Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. Photograph: Julie Fletcher/AP

When the Ferguson protests erupted, Sinyangwe felt a similar sense of injustice at the fate of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin as many of those who took to the streets. But, he says, there was no comprehensive data available on police shootings "so we couldn't get into the place of having a solutions-driven conversation".

Sinyangwe, a 25-year-old Stanford graduate, data scientist and policy analyst, had the necessary skills-set to fill the gap. He had been following DeRay McKesson's live-tweeting from Ferguson ("Tear gas feels like extreme peppermint tingling" and "Really bad car accident. Looting across from it. Pray for me") and tweeted him. The two of them spoke on the phone. Along with fellow activist, Johnetta Elzie - an important presence in the movement - they set up Mapping Police Violence. The aim was to collate all the necessary statistical information on police killings nationwide, with a particular emphasis on black deaths at the hands of police.

It was a gargantuan task. Sinyangwe set about sourcing the core data from the three largest crowdsourced databases on police killings in the country and then comparing these to social media, police and local newspaper reports in order to identify the race of 91 percent of all victims. Within four months, the site went live.

The results were shocking. Sinyangwe's work claimed that at least 1,149 people were killed by police in 2014, and that 304 of these - 26% - were black. Black people were nearly three times as likely as white people to be killed by police in 2014 and at least 101 of them were unarmed, according to Sinyangwe's record. In March 2015, 36 black people were killed by police - one every 21 hours, and a 71 percent hike in numbers from the previous month.

(When the Guardian launched The Counted, a long-term investigative project, providing the most comprehensive database of officer involved deaths in the US ever published, which includes deaths in police custody and victims hit by vehicles, they found the tally for the same month to be 37 black Americans with 113 deaths across all ethnicities.)

Compiling the data was, says Sinyangwe, deeply depressing. For one of the pages on the site, he posted individual photos of unarmed victims killed by police in 2014, along with their stories. "All of that is incredibly heavy and sobering," he says. "You're reading these stories of people who were chased down for riding a bike in the street. However, it's work that needs to be done.

"We have been holding a mirror up to the nation. And we've shown what has been going on for a very long time: that we are being brutalised. That the state is being violent against us... The nation is now aware of the problem. Whether we can agree on a solution or not is another question but at least they acknowledge something is going on and that's a great first step."

But what happens after that first step? Zuckerman warns that although social media can give the illusion of empowerment, it also runs the risk of diverting attention away from the knottier problems of longer-lasting policy change.

"We're at a moment where trust in our major institutions is at an all-time low," he says. "When you start losing trust in those institutions, you start losing your ability to change things. Social media is a place where people feel they can move the wheel, and they're right - they can change the representation of a gun victim in mainstream media. They can build momentum around removing the Confederate flag. But the fear is that it might be harder to make these much bigger structural changes in education or wage policy or to have a conversation about our gun culture."

Deray Mckesson in a tweeted picture from Selma, Alabama.

Some fear that certain actions are little more than publicity-seeking. When DeRay Mckesson recently visited South Carolina in the wake of the Charleston shooting, wearing the bright blue Patagonia body-warmer he wears to protests, several residents took to Twitter to express their anxiety that his presence would stir up unrest and created the #GoHomeDeray hashtag.

Oprah Winfrey, too, publicly aired her concern in an interview with People magazine at the beginning of the year. "It's wonderful to march and to protest," she said. "What I'm looking for is some kind of leadership to come out of this to say: 'This is what we want. This is what has to change.'" On Twitter, she was condemned as being "out of touch".

It is perhaps inevitable, as a movement gains in ground and size, that divisions will appear, that its focus will become messier. Alicia Garza talks of how #BlackLivesMatter has been appropriated by other, well meaning groups who have tried to adapt the message to state that "All Lives Matter".

"The reality, of course, is that they do," Garza says, "but we live in a world where some lives matter more than others. 'All Lives Matter' effectively neutralises the fact that it's black people who are fighting for their lives right now."

And then there are the inter-generational tensions. Some younger activists are wary of being dubbed "the new civil rights movement" because such a label undermines the traumatic nature of what is being faced in the present moment by black Americans and also because the new movement has not yet had the chance to mature, making any comparison unbalanced. Some resent the reverence accorded men such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte, who, in their eyes, represent a bygone era and who turn up in cities to hold press conferences only after the hard protest work has been done on the ground. They fear that the peaceful protests advocated by these elder statesman have little impact; that change will only be achieved by more assertive action.

Last December, there was a march organised by Sharpton's National Action Network in Washington DC. Johnetta Elzie was one of several younger campaigners who climbed on to the stage, yelling into the microphone "We started this!" In the crowd, someone else held up a sign stating in vivid green letters: "We, the youth, did not elect Al Sharpton our spokesperson. Have a seat."

When I speak to Jesse Jackson, he is sanguine about such incidents.

"Well some of them [the younger generation of campaigners] are respectful and some of them aren't," he says, talking over a crackling phone line just after attending the funeral service for the Charleston Nine. "But you're not protected from racism by age or by class. The fact is, there's no hiding place. We've got to work together.

"There's been nothing more dynamic in America over the last 12 months than these mass marches. There's a backlash. This is a mammoth backlash and it needs to happen."

And there is evidence of real change if you look for it: charges were filed against six Baltimore police officers in May relating to the death of Freddie Gray and it is likely that police reform will be an unavoidable subject in the forthcoming presidential campaign. But Freddie Gray is still dead. So are many more black people who died in police custody this year. That's the real issue.

Back in Oakland, Alicia Garza is reflecting on how much has happened since her original Facebook post, which became the hashtag that launched a thousand protests. Progress has been made, she says, and yet there is so much further left to travel.

"I have to be honest," she says. "I feel like I live in a constant state of rage and I think a lot of black people do... It's more than depressing to me. It makes me angry, particularly when people try to deny it's happening."

When she was younger, Garza wanted to be an architect. She liked the idea of "figuring out how to create something from nothing". And, in truth, she and her two friends have ended up doing just that. Not by building a house, but by building a movement from the foundations up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
#BlackLivesMatter: the birth of a new civil rights movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How a new generation of tech-savvy activists made violence against African Americans into global headline news

# data[].attributes.body
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage a Right Nationwide (Published 2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the court ruled, 5-4, that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

# data[].attributes.body
White Nationalists March on University of Virginia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The governor of Virginia declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville Saturday as white nationalists clashed with counterprotesters over a plan to remove the statue of a Confederate general from a city park. Credit Credit Matt Eich for The New York Times

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A month after a Ku Klux Klan rally here ended with the police using tear gas on protesters, Charlottesville is bracing for a weekend of white nationalist demonstrations and counterprotests, and suddenly this tranquil college town feels like a city under siege.

Thousands of people - many from out of town - are expected to descend on the city to either protest or participate in a "Unite the Right" rally on Saturday convened by white nationalists who oppose a plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, from a city park.

"People are angry, they're scared, they're hurt, they're confused," said the Rev. Seth Wispelwey of the local United Church of Christ. "White supremacists rallying in our town is an act of violence."

Late Friday night, several hundred torch-bearing men and women marched on the main quadrangle of the University of Virginia's grounds, shouting, "You will not replace us," and "Jew will not replace us." They walked around the Rotunda, the university's signature building, and to a statue of Thomas Jefferson, where a group of counterprotesters were gathered, and a brawl ensued. At least one person was led away in handcuffs by the police.

Image

White nationalists rallied at a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on Friday. Student protesters resisting the rally stood with a banner at the foot of the statue. Credit Alejandro Alvarez/News2Share, via Reuters

"I am beyond disgusted by this unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college campus," he added.

City officials and the police said they were prepared for possible unrest; the Virginia National Guard put out a statement saying it would "closely monitor the situation." Mayor Mike Signer said in an interview on Friday that he had been consulting with fellow mayors, seeking advice on how to "be prepared to make sure people can assemble and express themselves freely."

Religious leaders who are planning counterdemonstrations - including a sunrise prayer service featuring Cornel West, the Harvard professor and political activist - have been training in nonviolent protest.

The University of Virginia Medical Center has canceled all elective surgery - standard procedure in preparation for events that could lead to mass casualties. Around town, some businesses plan to close.

"This whole thing feels like the prep to a Wild West shootout where the businesses shutter and the women shoo their children upstairs," said Phillip Fassieux, 36, as he munched on an egg bagel at Bodo's, a few blocks from the Lee statue. "This isn't the wild, wild West. This is modern-day Charlottesville, where we're supposed to be better suited to engage with each other."

With the university, founded by Jefferson in 1819, as its centerpiece, Charlottesville is a politically progressive city; nearly 80 percent of voters here cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential race.

A statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va., a Southern city struggling to reconcile its past. Credit Matt Eich

But it is also a city steeped in Southern history, one that still wrestles with the legacy of slavery. According to Jalane Schmidt, a professor of religious studies at the university, 52 percent of the residents of Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County - 14,000 people in all - were enslaved during the Civil War. Jefferson, still revered here, was himself a slave owner.

Today, African-Americans make up 19 percent of the city's population, and gentrification is pushing many of them out, Ms. Schmidt said. The fight over the Lee statue - in a downtown park that was called Lee Park until it was recently renamed Emancipation Park - has opened up old wounds and brought simmering tensions over race to the fore.

Eugene Williams, 89, a former head of the local N.A.A.C.P., served sweet tea on the front porch of his house on Ridge Street one day this week and recalled the days when he was not allowed to dine at local restaurants. He favors keeping the Lee statue because he wants people to remember the Jim Crow era.

"This statue has a lesson to teach us," he said.

The debate over the statue began about a year and a half ago, when an African-American high school student here started a petition to have it removed. Wes Bellamy, the city's vice mayor and the only black member of the City Council, took up the cause, and the Council set up a commission. After public hearings, it recommended either that the statue be relocated to another park or that the city add historical context so that the monument could "transform in place."

Instead, City Council members voted 3 to 2 in April to sell the statue. The next month, a judge issued an injunction, keeping the statue in place for six months.

"Charlottesville kind of made itself a target by deciding they wanted to remove this statue, and by stringing the whole thing out," said Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia law professor who is planning to give a talk on free speech Saturday as part of a "day of reflective conversation" organized by the university.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan were escorted out of a planned rally last month in Charlottesville. Credit Chet Strange/Getty Images

Mr. Bellamy, 30, has himself become a target; he said in an interview that he has been receiving death threats. "When you have a black, young African-American vice mayor, in their eyes, who was getting too big for his breeches, they want to send a message," he said. "They call me every kind of N-word you can think of."

The conflict drew the attention of two white nationalists - Richard B. Spencer and Jason Kessler, both University of Virginia graduates. In May, Mr. Spencer, who gained national notoriety after the election of President Trump, led a gathering of torch-wielding protesters to the statue, which depicts Lee on horseback. At a Ku Klux Klan rally on July 8, the state police used pepper spray to disperse protesters, officials said.

Mr. Kessler, who organized the event on Saturday and calls himself a "white advocate," said in an interview that his goal was to "de-stigmatize white advocacy so that white people can stand up for their interests just like any other identity group."

In the run-up to Saturday, there has been confusion over where, precisely, the Unite the Right rally will take place. City officials denied Mr. Kessler's request to hold it in Emancipation Park, and instead granted a permit for a bigger park. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Kessler, seeking to keep the demonstration at Emancipation Park.

On Friday, a judge ruled in Mr. Kessler's favor.

But if the city seems seized with anxiety, there is also a sense of determination.

"Charlottesville is mobilizing," said Mimi Arbeit, a community activist who is helping to organize counterdemonstrations. "We cannot allow the rise of white supremacy. Ignoring the Klan in the 1920s is precisely what allowed them to terrorize and murder black people in Charlottesville. We cannot allow that history to be repeated."

Hawes Spencer reported from Charlottesville, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington.
Follow Sheryl Gay Stolberg on Twitter @SherylNYT.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Virginia Town Is on Edge Over Confederate Statue. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
White Nationalists March on University of Virginia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A month after a Ku Klux Klan rally here ended with the police using tear gas on protesters, Charlottesville is bracing for a weekend of white nationalist demonstrations and counterprotests, and suddenly this tranquil college town feels like a city under siege.